


A Less Than Quiet Morning

by orphan_account



Series: Two Anxious Wrecks and the Search for a Home [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: A little, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Other, Touch-Starved, i promise they will sometime not just touch hands okay, our boy has anxiety and he doesn't deal with it well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 08:31:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14996906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: You spent the last night in the abandoned house with Ralph, but morning comes, and you need to go to work. But your android companion doesn't want to be left alone.





	A Less Than Quiet Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the delay, real life got in the way! I'm not totally pleased with this, part of why it took so long to finish, and I hope that when I'm over this cold I'll be able to look at it with new eyes and maybe edit it a bit, when I'm less sick. I'm hoping to crank out a few more shorter chapters that I have in my head, and see where it goes. Please leave suggestions in the comments for anything you want to see, or if you think the gender of the reader should remain neutral or should be specified!
> 
> Edit: Edited for some grammar and to expand slightly, added about 400 words!

You wake slowly, lazily, like gently pulling away layers of a gauzy curtain to eventually reveal a soft, forgiving dawn. You’re warm, and surprisingly comfortable, and for a moment you genuinely cannot remember where you are, not that you’re complaining about it. Not your shitty apartment, that’s for sure, given by the lack of a blaring morning radio and scent of stale coffee, and not one of the couches of many of your friends, but then the fireplace comes into focus as you blink, and last night comes into perfect, crystalline clarity. Your horrible fight with your boyfriend, him screaming about androids and you scrambling like a panicked rat to get out of there, and then coming across Ralph, damaged and even more afraid than you were. Ralph. You muffle a yawn, as you re-acquaint yourself with the memory of your host. Strange, awkward, constantly on edge, but also undeniably sweet. You’re thinking of him fondly, wondering what he had been doing all night as you yawn, stretch, and then come nearly face to face with him, sitting in a chair pulled close to you, eyes shut, LED yellow and slowly spinning. One of his hands is closed over his stomach, the other hanging down near where your head had been. It brings some heat to your cheeks.

He looks peaceful, face slack, scar far less intimidating when it’s in the soft light of morning and not pressed close to you in a dark alley. It definitely is a burn, you decide, with little spots of melted skin running along its length. The underlying porcelain-pale plastic had seemingly shattered in some places, leaving a spiderweb of micro-fissures filled with thirium to run across his face. The cracks run through his left eye, and you cannot tell if the eye is still functional, given how dark with spilled thirium it was, but it is less shocking when his eyes are closed. It is a striking, if not initially frightening, visage. As you watch, his LED flickers, to red, yellow, and then back to red again, and that twitching tic returns. It is like he’s dreaming, or having a nightmare, if androids could do that. Although the sight makes your heart clench, it’s too personal of a scene for you to feel comfortable interrupting, and, besides, jumpy android in the middle of a nightmare isn’t exactly the sort of thing you want to startle. So, instead, you begin rousing yourself from your unfairly comfortable nest.

You stretch, yawn, back giving a short symphony of pops, and check your watch. The time blinks up at you, and you leap up with a squeak. Shit, shit, shit, you had like, twenty minutes to get to work. Immediately, you begin panicking, smoothing down your rumpled hair and cataloging everything you need but don’t have, your uniform, your employee card to actually get in and log hours, deodorant, a pair of shoes that aren’t caked with mud a fucking hair tie—but your near-deranged internal rambling is disturbed when there’s a sharp gasp behind you, and a cold hand closes around your wrist.

It’s Ralph, LED red, still quivering from whatever was chasing him in his sleep. So much for not disturbing your host.

“What’s wrong?” His tone doesn’t even have the decency to be slurred in an approximation of human weariness, sharp and immediately anxious. “Why are you awake, it’s still early, humans—humans need more sleep, are you trying to run away?” His grip gets tighter, the same mixture of fear and anger in his eyes that had been there last night. _Definitely a nightmare._ You could recognize that sour slink of fear all too well, when you had been woken in the midst of a night terror, and given his history with humans, you’re willing to bet whatever had been tormenting his rest had not been kind. “What, you didn’t like spending the night here? Are you going to go tell the humans that Ralph’s here?” Both of his hands are on your arms now, but he’s not holding you tight, you could pull away if you needed to, and you have to swallow a lump in your throat, because you know you need to keep calm. _He’s just frightened, confused from sleep, or standby, or whatever._ Freaking out would not help you, because even though your own adrenaline pooled in a tingling rush through your stomach, you can’t bring yourself to actually be frightened of the man in front of you. In fact, the near-rabid fear in his face does nothing but send a warm wash of pity through you. You can’t imagine being so scared all of the time.

“No, no, Ralph, it’s not like that.” Slowly you slide your hands out of his grip, instead gently clasping his hands in yours. He blinks, grimacing like he can’t quite see you properly. “I just need to go to work, that’s all, and I left all my things at my apartment when I came here last night.” He looks down, LED slowly changing to yellow, mouth opening and closing, eyes closed. “I need to get them, and I don’t have a lot of time, okay?” He nods, swallowing, his fingertips clenching and unclenching like a twitching muscle. 

“I’m—Ralph is—he’s sorry. When the anger, the memories, come, Ralph doesn’t know what he’s doing, he becomes _stupid _.” He keeps his gaze down, like a beaten dog, and you swear that there’s a hitch in his voice when he spits out that last word. “He didn’t mean it. He didn’t mean to scare you. You’re hurt like Ralph is and he was treating you like the humans did.” He looks up, face contorted in sorrow, and fuck, you didn’t know that androids could cry. ”I’m sorry, please don’t leave, Ralph didn’t mean it, please don’t leave Ralph all alone.” He’s shaking worse than you had seen before, dolorous eyes shining wetly, and you do the only thing you can think of, and fold him into a hug, hands resting on his skinny shoulder blades. “Ralph doesn’t want you to get hurt.” Slowly, his own hands come up to shyly rest on your back, his head resting on your shoulder, and you can feel the shudder of his artificial breath through your ribs.__

__“Shh, hey now, it’s okay, don’t worry. I didn’t mean to worry you like that, Ralph, okay? I wouldn’t just leave without saying goodbye.” The tension begins to seep out of him, and as it does, he only buries his face further into your neck. You wonder, abruptly, if he’s ever been held before. “I just got worried because if I don’t get going, I might get in trouble with my boss.” There’s a muttered _uh-huh_ , into your sweater, but currently, it seems like he has no intention of letting go, not that you can blame him. You’d rather have a quivering android seeking comfort in your touch than suffering alone. You stand there like that for more than a minute, and although you can’t say you’ve ever done this sort of thing before, but you can’t say you dislike it. A small seed of affection had seemingly taken root in your chest for the strange android, and fuck but does it feel nice to water it. “Ralph, I’m sorry, but,” you look at your watch, the time continuing to tick away, “I really do need to go.” For a moment you really think you’re going to have to peel him off of you, but he carefully unfolds his arms and turns away from you, curling back in on himself. He tries to wipe his face with the torn sleeve of his shirt, seemingly embarrassed. Without the large cloak, he looks vulnerable._ _

__“Sorry. Ralph didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” a sad tint of rejection in his voice. “You can go, he won’t bother you again.”_ _

__“Hey—,” you reach out, settling your hand on his shoulder, encouraging him to turn around to face you. He does, but continues to avert his gaze, obvious tear tracks stained with thirium cutting through a previously unnoticed layer grime on his pale face. “It’s okay, Ralph, you really didn’t do anything wrong.” You try to smile, but he continues to avoid your gaze, so you take matters into your own hands, literally, and gently cup his damaged face in your palms. He flinches, tries to turn away, as if expecting a punishment, but looks down in surprise upon feeling the tenderness in your nearly non-existent grip._ _

__“I’ll be back, okay? I promise, after work, I’ll go and get my stuff from my apartment, and I’ll come back here. It’s better than staying where with the asshole that gave me this. And do you know why I’m going to be coming back?” He shakes his head, and you smile again, wider, wide enough that he shyly looks up from the floor_ _

__“Ralph,” you say, bringing his face close enough to yours that you can see his pupils blown wide with some mixture of panic or hope or something in between, “I’m coming back because I trust you. And, well, I like you. A whole lot.” Then, it’s his turn to smile, stepping back slightly, hand fisted in his uniform over where his heart would be, looking down at his feet. A faint flush of blue staining his sallow cheeks._ _

__“Okay! Ralph’ll be here!” You grin at the enthusiasm in his tone and begin to walk towards the door. “No!” You start at the exclamation and look behind you, his hand outstretched slightly towards you, some of that ever-present fear on his face. He retracts his hand, shyly, and then, in a quiet voice says, “Use the back door, through here,” gesturing to the room you had yet to set foot in. “It’s safer. Don’t want you getting seen. Getting hurt.”_ _

__“Oh.” You blush, slightly. “Thanks.” He ushers you through, and you’re slightly taken aback at the writing on the walls. Ra9, written over and over, some of it scratched on, and some of it painted in what looks like evaporating thirium, and you can’t help but wonder if that’s why Ralph’s wounds are still bleeding, because he’s been using them to write with, but you have neither the time nor the emotional energy to deal with unpacking that after the morning you’ve had. There are some dying plants in the corner that hurt your heart to look at, leaves torn and brittle, straining for light, a visual metaphor that seems rather too heavy-handed._ _

__The previously-unnoticed door opens to pale morning sunlight, near where Ralph had initially caught you outside, and you step out, marveling slightly at the glimmering of dew on the grass. It’d been a while since you had seen anything green growing anywhere that wasn’t meticulously android-maintained._ _

__“See you after work, Ralph.” He nods and closes the door, obviously uncomfortable with being outside. You stand there for a moment, trying to figure out what the hell you just did, and why, but are, again, taken aback when your watch beeps. Five minutes. No time to go get your shit ready for work, you guess you’ll have to just beg for forgiveness after you take what you need._ _

__Although, to be honest, you don’t think you rather would have spent your morning any other way._ _


End file.
